Scientist Sir Oliver Lodge TLS

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One page typed letter dated 1927 and signed by Oliver Lodge. Paper and signature are in good condition, remnants of mounting page remain. Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge , FRS , ( June 12 , 1851 - August 22 , 1940 ), born at Penkhull in Stoke-on-Trent and educated at Adams' Grammar School , was a physicist and writer involved in the development of the wireless telegraph . Lodge, in his Royal Institution lectures (" The Work of Hertz and Some of His Successors ") coined the term " cor ." He gained the " syntonic " (or tuning) patent from the United States Patent Office in 1898. He was also credited by Lorentz (1895) [1] with the first published description of the Lorentz contraction hypothesis, in 1893. [2] Life Oliver Lodge was the eldest of eight sons and a daughter of Oliver Lodge (1826-1884) - later a china clay merchant at Wolstanton , Staffordshire - and his wife, Grace, née Heath (1826-1879). Sir Oliver's siblings included Sir Richard Lodge (1855-1936), historian; Eleanor Constance Lodge (1869-1936), historian and principal of Westfield College , London; and Alfred Lodge (1854-1937), mathematician.Lodge obtained a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of London in 1875 and a Doctor of Science in 1877. He was appointed professor of physics and mathematics at University College, Liverpool in 1881. In 1900 Lodge moved from Liverpool back to the Midlands and became the first principal of the new Birmingham University , remaining t until his retirement in 1919 , overseeing the start of the move from Edmund Street in the city centre to the present Edgbaston campus. Lodge was awarded the Rumford Medal of the Royal Society in 1898 and was knighted by King Edward VII in 1902.Lodge married Mary Fanny Alexandra Marshall in 1877. He and his wife had twelve children, six boys and six girls: Oliver William Foster (1878 - 1955), Francis Brodie (1880 - 1967), Alec (1881 - 1938), Lionel (1883 - 1948), Noel (1885 - 1962), Violet (1888 - 1924), Raymond (1889 - 1915), Honor (1891 - 1979), Lorna (1892 - 1987), Norah (1894 - 1990), Barbara (1896 - 1983), Rosalynde (1896 - 1983). Four of his sons went into business using Lodge's inventions. Brodie and Alec created the Lodge Plug Company, which manufactured spark plugs for cars and aeroplanes. Lionel and Noel founded a company that produced a machine for cleaning factory smoke. Oliver , the eldest son, was a poet and author.Before he died, Sir Oliver Lodge declared that he would prove the existence of an afterlife by making public appearances to the living after his death. No such appearances have been made. Lodge is buried at St. Michael's Church, Wilsford (Lake), Wiltshire. Accomplishments Lodge is notable for his work on the aether , which had been postulated as the wave-bearing medium filling all space. He transmitted radio signals on August 14, 1894 at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Oxford University, [3] one year before Marconi but one year after Tesla . Lodge improved Edouard Branly 's cor radio wave detector by adding a "trembler" which dislodged clumped filings, thus restoring the device's sensitivity. Lodge also carried out scientific investigations on lightning , the source of the electromotive force in the voltaic cell, electrolysis , and the application of electricity to the dispersal of fog and smoke. Lodge, Oliver J (1932).Lodge also made a major contribution to motoring when he invented electric spark ignition for the internal combustion engine (the Lodge Igniter). Later, two of his sons developed his ideas and in 1903 founded Lodge Bros, which eventually became known as Lodge Plugs Ltd. Besides inventing the spark plug and wireless, Lodge also invented the moving-coil loudspeaker , the vacuum tube (valve) and the variable tuner . Lodge was an active member of the Fabian Society and published two Fabian Tracts: Socialism & Individualism (1905) and co-authored Public Service vesus Private Expanditure with Sidney Webb , George Bernard Shaw and Sidney B... read more

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